Memor Veras Lemures
by orange crush
Summary: part I..... "It was tea at four o’clock sharp that kept him from remembering the color of anyone’s eyes; dinner and the telly that sealed up everything that had been Remus Lupin, and shoved it into a box for later examination."
1. For All

When James and Lily died, when Sirius was taken away, when Peter's terrible finger was all that was left to point at the past; a ghastly accusation and a reminder, something that would have been hilarious if it hadn't been real; Remus went home. Not to the school, which was the genesis of all things he'd known to be beautiful and true, as well as the seat of all wrongs. There were too many memories there of the bitter sort.

No, he went home, to the house where he'd come into the world, unblemished and squalling and minus an everlasting set of nectarine-colored scars. His father still lived there, and still got the paper at ten and the post at eleven. It was routine that saved his life that time, kept him waking up in the morning and going to bed at night. It was the paper at ten and the post at eleven that kept him eating and drinking and not thinking too much, crucial. It was tea at four o'clock sharp that kept him from remembering the color of anyone's eyes, dinner and the telly that sealed up everything that had been Remus Lupin, and shoved it into a box for later examination.

An examination that was not to come for twelve years. Out of necessity, or survival, or sheer bloody stubbornness.

He went home a second time, having seen the changed face of Sirius Black, and the debut of Harry as a player in their old, old game. The map was the same, the passages, the jokes, the expressions on the children's faces when they got caught at something. It was familiar, and for a few minutes here and there, Remus could almost forget that he was the grownup now, and the rest were mad or dead or evil.

This time around, his father was dead, and had been for years. The building had been in Remus' possession for that long, and in his neglect for longer, as the old man wasted away. There were books, and tatty blankets, a couch and a broken rabbit-eared set. It was a house, but not much more. He had not looked at it, really looked, since before… when ? When his mother died ? Since he left Hogwarts ? At any rate, he could not remember. Things had left their places and ended up on different floors; entire patterns of china had vanished. At some point he'd started to repaint a room and gotten bored, or distracted, or ceased to be able to afford paint. And there was a hell of a lot of dust. It gave him a genuine shock, enough to draw him out of his funk and into something perhaps more dangerous. What he remembered about the place was tucked up in an unchanging memory- what he saw instead was a mockery of the past, a shadow, a mistake. It had come out wrong.

It was rather like looking at Sirius.


	2. And Justice

My lover is

greedy

all eyes and mouth

my lover is tumbling with me

down and down and down

sunken eyes and yellow teeth and

I feel his ribs

my lover is (real)

here

alive

My lover is here, is here is here is here

"You've changed." he says, afterwards, with his back to Sirius. The dark-haired man just shakes his shaggy head. Leans over, puts a warm hand on the small of Remus' pale back, lets it sit there a moment.

"Guess I could say the same." is the reply, though he refrains from spelling it out. There's more silence now, where words would have sparkled between them, sunlight on a brook. The truth is, Sirius feels changed, watching his friend rise stiffly, shuffle over to the wardrobe, pull on faded trousers; all without speaking. Moony was always this silent, this patient. Moony was always this way.

He knows he's being watched.

"I wasn't always this way, you know."

"Yes, you were."

"No." he sits on the corner of the bed, eyes kind and humorless. "I laughed more."

"True."

There's a pause as they search for discarded clothes, and Remus refuses to let him put his tattered, grease-stained jumper back on, replacing it with one of his own. "They're going to know it's yours." Sirius warns tiredly, and sudden, foreign anger flickers in the other's eyes.

"What the hell do I care ?"

"Guess you don't." he says, and feels something warm blossoming in his chest.

They go downstairs together, one after another, and Sirius restrains himself from sliding down the banister rail. It's hard to remember how to behave. All he has are ten years of imagining himself back at school, back on the street, back buying muggle joke records and cleaning his teeth with a real toothbrush and dammit, imagining Moony. His face when he waltzes through the door, name cleared; his face when he kisses him again after two years (two years that became four, that became seven, ten, and twelve, twelve, a lifetime). "Thanks for letting me stay here. With you. Even though, you know." he blurts out, awkwardly grateful and uneasy. Remus looks at him blankly, then collapses into a kitchen chair, face in hands.

"God." he mutters. "_God_. Am I really that awful ?" He looks up, shopworn and horrified into clarity. "Look, I'm not having you here because… it's not like that. I don't want you, as you were. I just want you." And he wonders, in that instant, if he's gone and done it, if he's ruined it, if it's over. If that feeble apology could be enough.

That craggy face splits into a grin, and for a moment Remus can see the boy inside, and then back to the man. For the first time, he can honestly say which one he likes better. Which one he needs, now.

"That's good." Sirius the man says; and it's enough.


End file.
